


Soundtrack from Hell

by Cantatrice18



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Extended Scene, Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Not a girl, Not a marble either, Not a robot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 20:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16981278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cantatrice18/pseuds/Cantatrice18
Summary: New Yorker Magazines aren't enough of a torture, especially since the editors hired a new writer for the crossword puzzle. Shawn decides that Michael's punishment requires a soundtrack, something to torment his ears for the next ten thousand years. But replaying Michael's worst moments in surround sound does not have quite the outcome that Shawn expects.A blatantly unnecessary rewrite of the scene in 2x11, adding just a few more Janet and Michael feels.





	Soundtrack from Hell

Michael stared at the waist-high stack of New Yorker magazines. “Oh, come on!” he complained. “You and I both know I’ll never read those.” 

 

“Of course you won’t,” Sean gloated. “But they’ll just . . . keep . . . coming.” 

 

He gave an evil laugh. Beside him Bad Janet guffawed nastily. Michael glanced at the Janet, feeling an immense amount of hatred even by demonic standards. How had this crass, leather-clad creature managed to marbleize Good Janet so easily? He was considering ways to give the Bad Janet a kick in the tight black pants when he heard Sean speak again. 

 

“No torture is complete without a proper soundtrack,” Sean murmured smugly. “I considered Motown cover bands, or an endless loop of ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, but then I came up with a better way to torment your mind.” He grinned, showing teeth. “As you sit here rotting for ten million years, you’ll listen to the sounds of your most painful memories played over and over again.” 

 

He gestured to Bad Janet, and Michael braced himself. What would he hear, exactly? The 312th time he got passed over for promotion? The appallingly bad speech he’d given at his graduation from demonic training (Class of 540 BC)? Half the class had tried to hang themselves before the end of it. Would he relive that moment for the rest of eternity? 

 

Bad Janet made an upward scrolling motion on her phone, then pressed play. 

 

Immediately, the sound of a woman’s screams filled the empty white room. “No, Michael, please! I don’t want to die, please don’t kill me, I have so much to live for!” 

 

Michael could feel the breath in his lungs catch, his chest tightening painfully. Janet’s voice was as real as if she were standing on the beach with him, begging him over and over to spare her life. And he never had, not once in 800 reboots. He’d had a job to do, a neighborhood experiment to run, and that had been far more important than the nonexistent feelings of an informational delivery system. 

 

But her voice had remained with him. He’d blocked the sound from his mind, yet now as he heard her sobbing about her hopes and dreams for the future, about her kids or her pets or her sheer love for life, he felt all the pent-up guilt and sorrow come rushing back. Whatever algorithm ran the soundtrack had pegged him perfectly. Those moments on the beach, hitting the red button and wondering each time whether something would go wrong, whether this would be the final time he saw her, were absolutely the worst moments of his life. 

 

Sean stared at him. “Seriously?” he asked scathingly. “Some woman screaming is your worst nightmare?” 

 

He’s never heard it, Michael realized. And of course, he hadn’t. Why would Sean ever reboot a Janet? Sean and the other demons had never even met a Good Janet until Michael had stolen his Janet from the Warehouse. The Senior Demon had no idea what he was hearing. 

 

Bad Janet, on the other hand, was looking around the room as though searching for invisible speakers, her phone forgotten in her hand. She seemed unnerved to hear her own voice (or something quite similar to it) played back at her in such an odd way. Michael considered taking advantage of her confusion and running for the door, but it was too far away and in any case, where could he go? Without Janet to help him, he was trapped in the Bad Place forever. 

 

The image of his Janet being marbleized flashed through his mind once more, and he brushed his hand over the jacket pocket where he’d stored the marble. He didn’t know what he’d do with it, but he did know that he’d fight anyone who tried to take it from him. He would not allow a single demon or underling from the Bad Place to come near the final remains of his Janet. 

 

The Bad Janet was staring at him. Her eyes followed the path of his hand as he reached for the marble, her overly-penciled brows pulled together in a frown. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but before she could Sean began to laugh. 

 

“Is that . . .” Sean pointed upward, though the screams came from all around them. “Is that a Janet’s voice?” 

 

Michael glared at him with all the hatred he could muster. “No. It isn’t. It’s MY Janet’s voice. You couldn’t possibly understand.” 

 

“Why would I want to?” Sean asked, sounding almost curious. “Though from the sound of it, that neighborhood of yours was more amusing than I thought. I wouldn’t have imagined a Good Janet would be any fun to torture, but it would appear that I was wrong.” His lip curled into a smirk. “Where did you say that Warehouse was again? Next to Accounting, wasn’t it? Perhaps it’s time I acquired a Janet of my own to entertain me.” 

 

Michael tensed, but before he could take more than a step forward Bad Janet had leapt into action. Her arm shot out to grasp Sean by his neck, lifting him off the floor before throwing him bodily into the wall. He fell to the ground with a sickening crunch, like a cockroach beneath the heel of a low-cut black suede boot. Bad Janet surveyed the fallen demon for a moment, then slowly turned back to look at Michael, an odd expression in her brown eyes. 

 

“I didn’t feel anything,” she murmured. 

 

There was a slight furrow between her brows, a tilt to her head that was too familiar for him to overlook. “Janet?” he whispered, hardly daring to believe it might be her. He’d seen the marble, held it in his hand and listened to the story of how she’d been caught and destroyed. “Is that you?” 

 

The Janet nodded. With a wave of her overly-manicured hand, the sounds of screaming stopped, but her frown remained. “I didn’t feel anything,” she repeated. “Not once, not in 802 reboots, I promise.” 

 

“I knew that,” Michael admitted, feeling embarrassment creeping up on him. “But you can be quite convincing, when you want to be.” 

 

Her lips parted and she smiled in a way that was absolutely unique to her. “It is a very effective failsafe.” 

 

Any lingering doubt he might have had about her identity evaporated and he strode toward her. She did not pull away when he wrapped his arms around her, instead leaning toward him and resting her head on his shoulder. For a moment they stayed that way, a demon and his closest friend embracing in the depths of hell. Then a sound from around knee-level jolted Michael back to the present. 

 

“What happened . . .” Sean mumbled from the floor, struggling onto all fours. 

 

Janet broke out of their embrace and swung her leg back, delivering a kick that sent Sean hurtling into the wall and onto the ground once more. She turned to Michael, eyes bright and determined. “I think I can get us through the portal to the Judge.” 

 

Michael smiled contentedly. “Lead on.”


End file.
